The Broken Land(29)

I gaze around. Dozens of my relatives stand at the edge of the firelight. Their backs are to me. They will have the opportunity later, if the matrons take the issue back to their clans for a vote, to express their opinions. For now, they may listen, but no interference will be tolerated.

All of the children are gone. The leather privacy curtains of the living chambers have been drawn closed so that I cannot gaze into the sacred eyes of the False Face masks that hang upon the walls. For now, even the Spirits of my clan have turned their backs to me. Despite the curtains, the moans and cries of the sick inside the chambers carry.

I scan the matrons around the fire. Mother is allowed to be here only because she is standing in for my ill grandmother, Matron Jigonsaseh.

“Go ahead,” Matron Washais of the Wolf Clan says. Her elderly face has a shriveled appearance, like a winter-dried plum. She’s pulled her red-and-black cape tightly around her frail body.

I shift on the floor mat, trying to find a comfortable position. With my hands and feet bound, it is difficult.

“The Dream always begins the same way,” I say. “I can’t feel my body, just the air cooling as the color leaches from the forest, leaving the land gray and shimmering. Then Brother Sky goes leaden, and the patches of light falling through the trees curve into bladelike crescents. Finally, I begin to sense my skin. My fingers work, clenching to hard fists, unclenching. Beneath me, a great cloud-sea moves, rising and falling like waves. The sea is punctured by a great tree whose roots sink deep into the water world far below. As though the birds know the unthinkable is about to happen, they tuck their beaks beneath their wings and close their eyes, roosting in the middle of the day. Insects that only moments ago twisted through the air like tiny tornadoes vanish. Butterflies settle upon the clouds at my feet and hide themselves in the mist. An eerie silence descends. A … a voice calls my name, and it is as though my heart has crumbled to dust and sifted through the cracks in my soul, leaving my chest hollow as a drum. Then Morning Star suddenly flares in the darkening sky, and fantastic shadow-bands, rapidly moving strips of light and dark, flicker across the cloud-sea.”

Matron Washais whispers to Mother, who nods and says something to Matron Agwidi of the Turtle Clan.

Morning Star’s appearance is always an omen. She is very powerful and rescues starving villages in times of famine.

Matron Washais says, “Continue.”

Fires blaze down the length of the house, keeping the sick warm, cooking food. For a man who has spent the past moon sleeping in the open forest, it’s hot. Very hot. “I become aware that I am not alone. I see the gray shades drifting through the air, surrounding me, and from a great distance I hear voices echo. I suddenly understand that I stand with the last congregation. The dead who still wait.”

Washais’s old eyes tighten, but no one speaks.

“As I look down through holes in the cloud-sea, an amorphous darkness rises from the watery depths and slithers along the horizon. Strange curls of black, like gigantic antlers, spin from the darkness and rake the bellies of the Cloud People.”

“Horned Serpent,” Matron Agwidi whispers.

My bound hands tremble. Horned Serpent tried to destroy the world in the Beginning Time. They must all be wondering if he’s coming to try again.

I squeeze my eyes for a moment. The images are as powerful now as the last time I Dreamed them. “Elder Brother Sun’s blazing face begins to darken. After an eternity, his last flash forms into a brilliant diamond, and blindingly white feathers sprout from his body. Elder Brother Sun is flying. Flying away into a black hole in the sky. Despair fills me. It is the end of all life … unless I do something. I know this. I don’t know how, but it is up to me to stop the death of the world.”

Mother turns slightly. She has not looked directly at me during the entire council meeting. Firelight reflects in the black depths of her eyes, but there is something else there, too: belief vying with disbelief.

I clench my jaw. My voice comes out too strong, sounding urgent. “Like an animal struck in the head with a rock, I stagger as my body wakes, then comes to life in a raging flood. Just as I turn to speak to the Shades … a child cries out. The sound is muffled and wavering, seeping through the ocean of other voices. It sounds like the little boy is suffocating, his mouth covered with a hand or hide. Fear freezes the air in my lungs. As though he has his lips pressed to my ear, a man orders, ‘Lie down, boy. Stop crying or I’ll cut your heart out.’ The Dream bursts, like shards of ice striking a rock. For a time, there is only splintered brilliance. Then I—”